US Strikes Another Boat in East Pacific02/06 06:04

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. military said Thursday that it has carried out 
another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern 
Pacific Ocean.

   U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat "was transiting 
along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in 
narco-trafficking operations." It said the strike killed two people. A video 
linked to the post shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in 
flames.

   The strike was announced just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Pete 
Hegseth declared that "some top cartel drug-traffickers" in the region "have 
decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly 
effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean." However, Hegseth did not provide 
any details or information to back up this claim, made in a post on his 
personal account on social media.

   Neither U.S. Southern Command nor the Pentagon would answer follow-up 
questions about Hegseth's claim.

   The boat attacks, which began in September 2025, have slowed in frequency 
since January -- a month that only saw one strike after the raid that captured 
Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro. By contrast, the Pentagon struck more than 
dozen boats in December 2025.

   Thursday's attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration's 
strikes on alleged drug boats to 128 people. Last week, the military said that 
figure was up to 126 people, with the inclusion of those presumed dead after 
being lost at sea. That figure included 116 people who were killed immediately 
in at least 36 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea 
and eastern Pacific Ocean, U.S. Southern Command said. Ten others are believed 
dead because searchers did not locate them following a strike.

   Meanwhile, the families of two Trinidadian nationals killed in a Trump 
administration boat strike in Octobersued the federal government last week, 
calling the attack a war crime and part of an "unprecedented and manifestly 
unlawful U.S. military campaign." The suit is believed to be the first wrongful 
death case arising from the campaign and will test the legal justification of 
the attacks, which many experts say are a brazen violation of the laws of armed 
conflict.

   President Donald Trump has said the U.S. is in "armed conflict" with cartels 
in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to 
stem the flow of drugs. But his administration has offered little evidence to 
support its claims of killing "narcoterrorists."